Hor. No; but I want to set down something, now I think of it, which I have heard you repeat several times. I have often had a mind to ask you for it, and it always went out of my head again. It is the epitaph which your friend made upon the Duke.
Cleo. Of Marlborough? with all my heart. Have you paper?
Hor. I will write it upon the back of this letter; and as it happens, I mended my pencil this morning. How does it begin?
Cleo. Qui belli, aut paucis virtutibus astra petebant.
Hor. Well.
Cleo. Finxerunt homines sæcula prisca Deos.
Hor. I have it. But tell me a whole distich at a time; the sense is clearer.
Cleo. Quae martem sine patre tulit, sine matre Minervam,
Illustres mendax Græcia jactet avos.
Hor. That is really a happy thought. Courage and conduct: just the two qualifications he excelled in. What is the next?